


Snippets

by Godeskian



Category: Doctor Who (2005), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), Justice League - All Media Types, Supergirl (TV 2015), Superman - All Media Types, Teen Titans - All Media Types
Genre: Alex Danvers is a badass, Angst, F/F, Lena Luthor is a badass, Major Character Injury, Snippets, anguished declarations, lena and alex brotp
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-10-29 01:29:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17798525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Godeskian/pseuds/Godeskian
Summary: I have far more ideas than i'll ever write full stories for, here's where I wanted to put those ideas. Maybe people will find them entertaining, maybe people will want to do something with them, maybe they'll gather dust, like a book forgotten in a library. It's all good.





	1. The Last Of Us

**Author's Note:**

> This snippet is from the idea of Kara being culturally the last child of Krypton, especially after the death of the Fort Rozz Kryptonians.

Last of us

\---- 

“I am the last daughter of Krypton,” Kara Zor-El Danvers intoned, her voice filled with gravitas and meaning.

An effect slightly ruined by only two things. The first being the artful eyebrow raise on the face of Lena Luthor at the proclamation, the second being that she was reclining on an old desiccated tree branch somewhere in the middle of Arizona.

The silence stretched between them for a long moment before Lena gave an amused sigh. “Fascinating, I’m sure.  Ignoring for a moment that Superman exists, and there may well be other Kryptonians who were off-world when it was destroyed, my question was, Why are we here?”

Kara opened her eyes, gazing at the woman leaning against the convertible they’d driven to this spot. In fact, she knew Lena had been confused as to where they were going for some time, but hadn’t protested when Kara had suddenly told her to pull over.

“Clark doesn’t count,” she responded, and seeing Lena’s look shook her head. “He’s genetically Kryptonian, sure, but culturally he’s second generation American. If he’s aware of our culture at all, it’s from the perspective of a foreigner looking in from the outside.”

Kara sat up, turning towards Lena, who gave her a piercing gaze as the seriousness of what was being said sunk in. “go on,” she encouraged.

“I remember Krypton, Lena. I remember it’s oceans, and mountains. The holidays and high holy days. Junk food and Kryptonian slang. There are colours that don’t express themselves on Earth because your planet’s star is different from mine. Sounds that don’t exist because the animals that create them don’t exist here. I remember them, vaguely sometimes, but they’re still in here.”

She tapped her head lightly as she spoke, and Lena stood up from where she’d been leaning and sat down on the branch next to her girlfriend. She paused for a second as the replayed that thought in her head. It had been almost eighteen months now since one of Lex’s plans had forced her to choose between her family and the Girl of Steel, and the decision had come easily.   
  
‘No,’ she thought to herself. ‘Not easily, but clearly at least. The only decision I could make and still be me.’

Lex had managed the impossible, to hijack Supergirl’s body, transferring his consciousness into her Kryptonian form, and ultimately it had been Lena who had provided the plan to fix that. Over the next half year, her allegiances solidified, she’d learned who Supergirl really was, spent a night cussing herself out for not realising it, and built a friendship followed almost inevitably by a romance with the blonde beam of sunshine that was Kara Danvers.

So when she had vanished, out of touch and out of reach of everyone, herself, the DEO, even Alex, the day after her so called ‘Earth Birthday’, Lena had worried, and eventually asked her what she was doing on that day. Kara had merely responded that she’d have to wait and see next year, and then had shown up at her door with a car and instructions to get in quickly.

They’d driven for hours, Lena taking over the wheel to give Kara a break in which the blonde had managed to talk about anything and everything, except where they were doing.

This dusty spit of earth had not been what Lena had been expecting, but the more interesting fact was that it hadn’t appeared to be what Kara was expecting either. They’d been driving along while she talked about journalistic ethics and fake news when Kara had suddenly whipped her head around and told Lena to stop.

“So, last daughter of Krypton,” Lena said with a small smile as she leaned into the other girl. “We’re here, somewhere in Arizona in a scene so cliched, that it probably features in advertising, but what are we doing here?”

“Waiting,” Kara responded. “See a year and a day after I landed, I was feeling homesick. Really homesick, the kind that drives you out of the house filled with people who took you into their homes, and into their hearts. There was an itch to move, to fly and even though I’d promised I wouldn’t use my powers, I couldn’t help it. I didn’t even really know where I was going, just that I was sure I knew I was going somewhere.”

She gazed upwards at the bright noon sun, letting its warmth feed her in a way that mere calories couldn’t. “You have to understand, on Earth, I can feel things that no one else can.” She held a hand up and let the wind play through her fingers. “I can feel the disturbances in the air from a passing jet at twenty thousand feet. I can see a groundhog half a dozen miles away poking it’s head out of it’s hole. I can hear people all the way back in National city if I concentrate hard enough. I can pick a heartbeat out of a crowd, some of them without trying.”

“My,” Lena coughed lightly. “My heartbeat?”

Lena reached over and let her lips briefly brush over Lena’s, taking in her taste and scent. It brought her home in a way that little else could in this world. “Ever since that night in the warehouse,” she confirmed. “Everywhere I am, all I have to do is listen, and there you are. “

She blushed suddenly at the sudden spike in Lena’s heartbeat. And leaned back, trying to put enough distance between hem to finish her story. “Like I said, I couldn’t go to Clark. To him Krypton was like the Netherlands or Finland. Kind of interesting in a way, maybe fun to visit someday, but not something he felt a great personal connection to the way I do. So I flew, and landed in the middle of a city on the east coast and that’s where I met him.”

“Met who?” Lena asked and Kara chuckled.

“Funny you should ask. I don’t know his name, to this day he’s never shared it and I doubt he ever will. I call him the Doctor.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s what he told me to call him,” she replied easily.

Lena looked perplexed but rallied gamely. “Okay then, what does he look like?”

“Don’t have the faintest idea,” Kara admitted it, enjoying the annoyed look on her girlfriend’s face. “I’m not being a smartass either Lena. I know what he looked like last time I saw him, but he changes his face, so he could look like anything.”

Lena gave her a look, one that might best be called old fashioned. The kind of look nannies gave their wayward charges and waited patiently for her to continue.

“The Doctor is old, very old, and very kind, and like me he’s the last of his species. The last to remember his homeworld, and like me he’s very lost in this big old universe. Also like me, or maybe I'm like him, he copes with it by helping people, wherever he goes, and every now and then he lets people come along on the adventure. And, once a year, on the day after my Earth Birthday, I look for him with senses I can’t quite describe.”

Lena looked around dubiously. “And he’s coming here?”

Kara let her eyes drift closed and opened all the senses that were better than human under a yellow sun, and after a long moment nodded. “That’s the beauty of it, two people, both the last of their kind, we bonded, we became friends, and without ever quite agreeing it verbally, he shows up today,” she paused. “Well, most years, anyway.”

“So what you’re telling me is that once a year an ancient alien who can change his shape shows up and you two what, go on an adventure together?”

“Pretty much,” Kara responded, even as Lena looked completely baffled at the notion. “You wanted to know where I went after my Earth Birthday,” she reminded the other woman.

Lena honestly didn’t know how to respond, a lifetime of dealing with increasingly bizarre and complex problems leaving her completely bereft of any idea of how to handle this situation. “I have no idea how to respond to that, except to point out the statistical unlikelihood of there always being an adventure available, exactly on the day after your birthday, and him always showing up for it.”

“Ah, that’s because not all of those adventures take place on Earth, or even today. Benefits of a time machine,” the grin on Kara’s face could best be described as shit-eating as Lena sputtered at the notion of using a time-machine for what amount to a day out. Then at the idea of time-machines being real. She was about to say something no doubt very snarky, when the look in Kara’s eyes stopped her. The blonde hero wasn’t paying attention to her at this moment.

“What?”

“You’ll see,” Kara responded, pointing at an empty patch of dirt maybe twenty feet away. Senses so far beyond human that she didn't have a name for them could feel his approach, the slow stretching of the dimensional barriers of time and space. Like a finger pushing onto plastic wrap until it popped straight through. 

“You’ll hear it first, a sound like a key being scraped over a guitar string. A sound that brings hope and comfort to those who hear it. Like living proof that the world is about to get better.”

Even as she said it, Lena could begin to hear a sound, exactly as described, and her eyes went wide as saucers as a bright blue light appeared maybe eight feet off the ground, and like a ghostly apparition a blue box appeared in front of them.

“Last of his kind,” Kara said, almost reverently. “Even on Krypton we’d heard of the Doctor, though I didn’t expect to ever meet him, let alone travel with him.”

The blue box resolved itself into solidity and Kara walked up and knocked politely, trailing a still wide-eyed Lena. “Last time I saw him, he was wearing black and very angry at the world. I'm not going to tell you his story, except he'd just come out of a war so big, it shook the very foundations of reality. So, if he’s a bit off-putting don’t take it personally.” She warned even as the door was flung open.

Out stepped a young man, with piercing eyes that immediately gave a lie to the façade of his youth, wearing a sports coat and bowtie in place, and of all things a bright red fez on his head. “Kara Danvers,” he said with a manic grin as reached out to her. “And friend?” he nodded to Lena even as Kara gave him a huge hug.

“Doctor, new face?” she asked rhetorically. “I’d like you to meet Lena Luthor. She’s not the last of her species, but she is the last of her family to all intents and purposes. I was hoping this year, she could come along.”

Even as the alien began bombarding Lena with friendly, intrusive questions Kara had to chuckle. No, maybe being the last wasn’t such a bad thing, because on the right day, when all the stars aligned and the Doctor came to call, neither of them were alone.

And that made all the difference.

 


	2. Thanks for nothing, you useless reptile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara would do almost anything for Lena, but she won't do that.....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Snippets is a series of one-shots for ideas that I have but don't want to turn into full works. Any continuity between chapters is accidental. On the rare occasion I post a second snippet in a series, I'll link to the chapter of the original.

 

Thanks For Nothing, You Useless Reptile

\---

“No, absolutely not!” Kara exclaimed in disbelief as she looked at the rig Lena had just unveiled. Lena then did the most despicable thing the Kryptonian could imagine, puppy dog eyes.

“Please Kara,” she said, putting an extra note of pleading in her voice. A false note, part of Kara insisted stubbornly. “I need to be able to provide test results to the testing board, and there’s no way to do it safer than have you fly me up there.”

Kara turned a glare on her girlfriend, and wasn’t that a new development, which bounced harmlessly off her. Kara didn’t know how she was doing it, but somehow Lena’s eyes looked like they’d gotten bigger, which did nothing to hide the twinkle of amusement in them.

“Even if,” she said in a measured voice. “Even if I  agreed that to this, I am not wearing that.” She pointed at the second costume, and the pout on Lena’s face became a grin of what could only be considered triumph. She obviously considered the battle half won.

Kara ignored her and walked over to the suit of pseudo-armour Lena had hanging from a mannequin. It truly was exquisite workmanship. “Why is L-Corp building a wingsuit prototype anyway?” she asked, sensing more than hearing Lena move up behind her.

The suit was gorgeous. Behind it there were diagrams and technical plans, but Kara’s focus was on the suit itself, the beautifully crafted leather having been shaped to look like hundreds of black scales, with red highlights running around the wrists and down the legs. Even the helmet racked next to it evoked the scales and steel motif of ancient armour, and was similarly done in black with red highlights. The right shoulder had a pauldron that looked like it was awaiting a logo to be stamped on it, and the whole thing looked lethal and efficient.

“One of our tech-heads, Jay something or other mentioned that one of the new fibers for the L-Corp Green Company initiative had better tensile strength than the nylon used for parachutes and wingsuits. It wears harder, lasts longer and due to a quirk of the material can actually be formed into part of the suit rather than sewn on,” Lena’s voice explained as her head came down on Kara’s shoulder, and her arms snaked round the blonde’s waist.

"It’s a niche market, but just because it’s niche doesn’t mean that it won’t be profitable and it could save lives.”

Kara barely supressed a groan as Lena used an argument she would find it nearly impossible to resist. Saving lives was pretty much her entire mission statement as Supergirl. Obviously she hadn’t fully suppressed the reaction as the arms tightened around her and a soft pair of lips kissed the side of her neck.

She shook herself and deliberately grabbed Lena’s arms and lifted them off, turning to face her unrepentant girlfriend. Normally Kara worked hard to put a smile on Lena’s face, but the blazing, shit-eating grin on said face was not one of shared love or enjoyment, it was one of victory, and Kara fought back against the unstoppable object that was her human girlfriend.

“If,” she said sternly. “I agree to do this, that’s one thing. Sure, I can see how having Supergirl launch you and recover you if it all goes wrong makes sense. But there is no excuse for that.” She pointed imperiously at the second suit that was still under construction.

Lena gave her a look probably intended to look innocent, but it was not a look she had much practice in, and Kara raised her eyebrows. “Well?”

“It’s almost Halloween?” Lena asked, trying to maintain a straight face.

“I don’t like Halloween,” Kara retorted. “ _You_ don’t like Halloween, and I am not wearing that for anything.”

It was the wrong thing to say, Kara realised instantly. Lena’s expression immediately shifted from her faux-innocent look to a predatory one that anyone who had ever had to negotiate a contract or business arrangement would have recognised. This was the look of a carnivore who had a small and innocent prey-animal cornered with no room to manoeuvre, and Kara began to back away warily.

Lena followed her movements, closing the already small gap between them, and a hand drifted down to Kara’s shirt as she backed into the mannequin and couldn’t go further without knocking it over. Ruby lips pressed themselves against hers, and her mouth opened as Lena’s tongue did it’s work. Kara couldn’t help but groan as the sensations washed over her, and just as he was about to reciprocate, the lips left hers, and she heard the traitorous little whisper. “Are you sure I can’t…..convince you?”

“Dammit woman,” Kara growled as she pulled Lena’s face back to hers. “That voice of yours should be a lethal weapon.” There was no anger in her tone. There was heat though, . Lena might have caught her, but it wasn’t like she hadn’t known it was a trap when they’d begun dating. She’d walked in willingly as a lamb to the proverbial slaughter, and could hardly complain at the feelings Lena evoked in her.

"I'm still not doing it," she replied in between kisses, as Lena's hand roamed first over her shirt, then under it. Those hands always knew exactly where to stroke, where to drag a finger with a touch so featherlight it was maddening, and Kara felt herself getting aroused. For nearly a full minute Lena plied Kara's mouth and engaged in what could only be heavy enough petting to make Kara desperately hope there were no security camera's in this room.

"Okay," Lena finally whispered, and in one smooth motion stepped back and smoothed her shirt, pulling a phone out of her pocket and beginning to type away, completely ignoring the panting Kryptonian. Kara's mouth opened and closed a few times as the incredible stimulus of Lena was suddenly and brutally yanked away, and she fairly well squeaked in outrage.

"You get back here Luthor, and finish what you started," she demanded indignantly. Lena ignored her and continued typing.

"I'm so sorry darling," she said, not sounding anything of the sort. "But since you won't help me with the live test, I'm going to have to hold a meeting about arranging for some tests through official channels. I'm afraid I'll be in meetings all afternoon." Her green eyes met Kara's for a brief moment and there was no mistaking the look as she lowered her voice and continued in a breathy tone. "All.... _tied....._ up. Just me, in a room, trying to get something _off_.....the ground."

"Lena!" Kara fairly well whined, and a look of triump passed over the CEO's features. 

“Is that a yes?” Lena asked, her voice pitched deeper as a single finger traced the side of her neck and down into the top of her shirt.

There was a single heartbeat as Kara’s eyes were transfixed by Lena’s motions, before she shook her head with a rueful grin. “That’s cheating you know.”

Lena laughed, and it was a sound that Kara always longed to hear. “All’s fair in love and war darling.”

“Fine,” Kara gave in as gracefully as she could. “But you need to clear your schedule for the next hour or so.”

Lena grinned, tapping one last thing on her phone and tossing it onto a nearby bench. "Done, I've just told Jess to clear my afternoon. Told her it was urgent business that couldn't wait."

If Kara had been fairly caught by Lena, it was absolutely true to say that Lena had been fairly caught by Kara. For a woman who had spent most of her life in one darkness or another, the pure blinding radiance of her joy and zest for life was as addictive as the worst kind of drug, but with only good side effects and even as she began unbuttoning her top.

“Damn right Luthor, I'll deal with you and your wicked ways."

"Promises, promises Kara," came the response, before they were in each others arms again.

\---

Three days later, late on Halloween night two figures stood on a cliff overlooking the Pacific.

Lena had insisted on secrecy, claiming that it was a prototype and they didn’t want anyone to spot it and wonder why they were using it.  
  
Kara had insisted on secrecy, but mostly because if anyone saw her in the costume she was wearing, she’d have to kill them. Her dignity wouldn't allow any other result.

Lena, looked spectacular in her flight suit, managing to pull off the leather dragon scale and armour look like she had been born to it, as she stood on the cliff edge, helmet crooked under her arm, and hair blowing lightly in the wind.

Kara looked down at herself and grimaced. Her suit was as black as Lena’s, and scaled too. A pair of wings were build into the suit, heavy but not for Kryptonian and the part of her that wasn't mortified was already beginning to consider the aerodynamic possibilities of them. The big difference between them however, was that whereas the dark haired L-Corp CEO looked like sex on wheels, she looked….well, like a cartoon dragon and she eyed the helmet distastefully. “I just want you to know, I hate you and everything you stand for.”

“Noted,” Lena replied with a grin. “Now put on the helmet. Safety first you know.”

Kara sighed again. ‘ _The things I do for love_ ’, she thought to herself as she settled the oversized helmet on her head. It fit snuggly and Lena had obviously gone to some effort to get it moulded specifically for her head. Somehow that made it worse, because it meant her girlfriend had intended for this outcome from the very beginning. The fact that the suit fit her perfectly did nothing to change that opinion. It also didn’t change the fact that she looked like Toothless the dragon, and she swore to Rao, she was going to make Lena pay in some way for this indignity, even as the target of her ire began to guffaw.

“It’s not too late to call this off Lena,” she reminded her girlfriend, who pulled her expression back to something approaching seriousness.

“Of course dear. Shall we do this then?” She put on her own helmet and Kara grasped her under the arms and lifted into the sky. She had adamantly refused to carry Lena on her back, and no amount of pleading, cajoling, offers of food or sex had been able to convince her otherwise. There were limits to the indignity she was willing to suffer as the two figures coasted through the black night, virtually invisible due to their suits.

' _Thank heavens for small favours,'_ Kara thought to herself as she checked the heads up display built into the clear glass lenses of the helmet. Wind and weather reports were still favourable, and it was nice to have an actual altimeter to give her an idea of how high up she was. Lena had insisted on a long test, so going higher was preferable.  
  
Beneath her Lena chuckled. "There were dragons, when I was a girl," she paraphased.  
  
Kara snorted. "Choose your next words carefully Luthor, or I might just drop you," she mock-threatened, as if that wasn't the plan all along.  
  
There was maybe three moments of blessed silence, before Lena responded.  
  
"Thanks for nothing, you useless reptile."  
  
Kara dropped her.  
  
 _~fin~_


	3. Into the Breach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Demons rise, and heroes fall, as Trigon invades. Only sacrifice can save anyone at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Snippets is a series of one-shots for ideas that I have but don't want to turn into full works. Any continuity between chapters is accidental. On the rare occasion I post a second snippet in a series, I'll link to the chapter of the original.
> 
> \----  
> Warning: This chapter is as dark as anything I've ever written. Major character deaths, angst, and no real happy ending. Be warned.
> 
> I originally wrote this sometime after the end of season 3, as a possible lead in to a full story I never quite got round to writing, so I am reposting it as a snippet in it's original format, having only updated Raven's name and look. It was intended partly as an homage to the Crisis comics of the 80's.

\---

**Into the Breach.**

\---

“This is Lena Luthor to all points, device complete, return to Command One.”

The whispered command went out over the net, and Lena wanted to cry. The device was complete, one reality bomb ready to defeat Trigon’s massive five hundred plus mile breach in reality and send the Demon packing.

Shame it had cost the lives of thousands, maybe even tens or hundreds of thousands to get them to this point. She glanced over at the body of Cyborg, Victor Stone, whom she had met for the first time less than two days ago when the portal first opened, and who had given his life without hesitation to defend her and the other tech-heads working on the bomb. She hadn’t even seen him fall, so hard had she been concentrating.

She didn’t have time to mourn though, not with a breach that spanned three states and was growing steadily still to close.  
  
The first to make it back was Raven, who simply appeared out of a pool of shadow. She stopped and stared for a moment at Cyborg’s limp form, then the two pale eyes peaking out from the shadows under her hood fixed on Lena.

“Is it done? Exactly as I explained?”

“Yes,”  Lena snapped. “We made your implosion device; now can you show some damned emotions for once?”

The eyes merely gazed at her impassively. “How would that help?” she asked, and Lena made an inarticulate cry of rage that was only choked off when a blue and red clad figure slammed in through the hole in the roof, followed by a man glowing green.

John Stewart had looked better, Lena decided and Kara? Kara always looked fantastic to her, but right now the Kryptonian had been through the wringer. Her uniform was torn and messy, there were honest to God cuts and abrasions on her, and her left eye was beginning to swell.

Lena had to resist the urge to run over and hug her and make sure she was okay, but it had been unavoidable. Superman and Supergirl, along with Wonder Woman were amongst the most powerful of Earth’s defenders and so they had naturally found themselves where the fighting was fiercest. Donna Troy at least had already been confirmed KIA, and no one had been able to get eyes on where Wonder Woman had been brought down, though the rain of demonic body parts suggested she was still fighting the good fight.

“Is this all that’s left?” she asked as the three heroes looked at her, and she felt panic rising. They didn’t know what she’d discovered.

“I’m afraid so,” Kara responded, her tone gentle and at odds with her bearing. “Clark’s been badly injured and is still fighting, everyone else is either too far away, or too busy.”

“The bomb is ready,” Lena said, her voice thick with emotion. “If Raven is right, and we did our job right, when it detonates inside the portal it’ll first drain it of power, then implode inside it, shattering the link to Azeroth. It probably won’t kill Trigon, but it’ll hurt him badly, maybe even enough to make him think twice next time.”

She tried to inject a note of hope into her voice, but Raven’s steely stare didn’t seem very encouraging.

John immediately stepped forward and placed a hand on the slightly larger than basketball sized sphere of metal. “I’ll take it up. I can shield myself for long enough,” he said with confidence. No one was surprised, John Stewart was nothing if not professional about these things.

Lena cleared her throat, wishing she didn’t have to say what she was about to say. Willing her traitorous tongue to stay silent.

“I’m sorry John, but because of how fragile the device is, and how imperative it is to detonate beyond the event horizon, we had to encase it in a custom ally Cyborg made in order to make it immune to damage before it gets there.”

Her eyes snapped to Kara, pleading for forgiveness. “Only someone with super strength can crack the shell, and the device will activate instantly once the shell is broken.”

The silence in the room was marred by the sounds of battle and screams outside as the four people took in that news. Then Kara took a deep breath and stepped forward, placing a hand on the device herself. “Sorry John, looks like I’m kill-stealing today.”

The Green lantern opened his mouth to protest then closed it as the look in her eyes registered. “All right,” he finally said, his voice heavy. He glanced at Lena, then back at the Kryptonian. “I’ll rally as many Lanterns and heroes as I can find. We might not be able to do this for you, but we can clear the path.”

Kara nodded her thanks, and he quickly flew back out the hole. She was about to ask Raven to give them a minute when the cloaked figure spoke up.

“It’s worse than you think.”

“What do you mean?” Kara asked. “Now’s not the time for cryptic bullshit Raven.”

Lena might have thought there was the tiniest change of tone in the other girl’s voice when she responded, but she wouldn’t have bet money on it.

“You asked me to find out what I could about the portal. Trigon isn’t just invading this reality, he’s invading up and down the time-stream. The good news is, if the bomb does what it’s supposed to, you may well erase a large chunk of Trigon from existence, in all time periods. You might even kill him.”

Kara’s eyes narrowed as the other girl stopped speaking, and then they went wide. Lena did not miss that.

“What?” she demanded. “What’s the bad news?”

“Lena,” Kara said gently. “When his goes off, it’ll do so instantly right? It’ll kill me.”

Lena couldn’t even respond, even though she knew the question was coming. There had been no choice at all. The energy from the portal would have torn the fragile device to pieces, and the only way to ensure it survived was to build it with an outer shell so tough it could take the damage, but that also meant that it could only be carried by someone capable of breaking it. Superman, Supergirl, J’onn, Wonder Woman. Maybe one or two others, but certainly not many more. It had never occurred to her that all of their super strength heroes would be out of action or elsewhere engaged in battle, and Kara would be the one to carry it in. It’s not like she would have liked to see anyone else die, but if she had to rank the Supers she knew by preference, Kara would be at the top of her ‘do not kill’ list.

“If this portal extends throughout history,” she paused and glanced at Raven to make sure her conclusion was correct, and received a nod in return. “Then it won’t just kill Trigon and myself, it’ll erase us from history. It’ll literally unmake our existences, because it will kill us in all time periods.”

Lena physically staggered as the implication hit her, only stopped from falling because Kara had been there to catch her. The Kryptonian looked at her, then over at Raven.

“Give us a minute?”

Raven frowned and Kara glared at her. “I’m about to make the ultimate sacrifice, do I have a minute, yes or no?”

Instead of answering, Raven sighed, summoned her powers and walked forward, her hands changing into black mist. Before either woman could move, she sank a hand into each of their temples and they felt a sharp stinging sensation.

The black field the three of them appeared on could only charitably be called a desolate void. It was much more unsettling than that, and Raven gave them an inscrutable look. “You have five minutes, I can hold a mental bridge for that long. Speak quickly and tell no lies.”

With that the enigmatic daughter of Trigon disappeared and Kara looked over at the stricken Lena with a smile that could have lit up a room.

“Oh Lena,” she said walking over to her and enveloping her in a hug. “My brilliant, compassionate beautiful Lena.”

“This can’t be happening Kara,” Lena said. “It was bad enough when I thought I was just killing you. I figured a lifetime of guilt would be the least I’d suffer, but to erase you from history? It’ll be like you were never even born.”

“True,” Kara said, pulling back slightly and brushing Lena’s hair out of her face. “But that’s the hero gig. Not for fame or fortune, but in the dark, for one person and a world who might never know.”

Tears were running down Lena’s face, and she simply couldn’t understand how Kara was so calm about it, until the blonde girl took her hand and placed it on her chest. The rapid staccato of her heartbeat gave an instant lie to the pretence of calm. “And you’re worth it Lena, to me at least. You’ll get to live.”

Taking Raven’s words to heart, Lena responded softly. “Without you. Kara, I wish I’d told you before, how much you mean to me. You are quite literally the sunshine in my life, from the day we met and you flew to my office on a bus.” Kara chuckled at that. Had it only been three years ago.

“You never saw my family, just me. You made me want to be better, to live up to your example. I had spent my whole life surrounded by darkness, and there you were, beckoning me into the light. I am a better person for having known you.”

“Lena,” Kara responded, her own eyes now suspiciously moist. “You realise I’m going to have a hell of a time following that, right?” she asked, and a laughing sob broke from Lena’s throat.

“But here goes. I love you Lena Luthor. I should have said something. Should have spent my days making you happy, doing things to see that smile on your face,” Kara’s voice began to break. “And there is nothing I wanted more than to wake up next to you. It shouldn’t have taken the end of the world for me to say it. I’ve loved you for years, and I regret all the days we could have had but didn’t.”

Kara took half a step back, taking in all of Lena, committing her to memory, before giving her a frank and appraising look that both chilled the CEO to the bone, and made her tingle. “I don’t suppose it’ll matter in the long run, and hell this is the worst time for it, but Lena, here in the privacy of our minds, would you marry me?”

“Now?” Lena asked in mock outrage. It was ludicrous, they’d known each other for years, but had never even kissed and Kara wanted to marry her? “You are insane Danvers.”

“It’s the end of the world,” Kara responded. “Might as well do something a little crazy.”

The chuckle was more honest this time, and Lena gazed at her. “Yes, for the few minutes before history erases you from my mind, I’d be happy to call myself your wife.”

Kara took a step forward and their lips met in need, in love and in a desperate desire to hold onto something. Whatever was left of their five minutes was lost in the timeless moment of two souls in perfect harmony.

\---

Lena stared at the hole in the roof through which Supergirl had departed, Raven standing silently behind her. “I really, really hate you.”

Raven said nothing in response, but a quick enchantment and the two of them found themselves outside, near a destroyed wall and with a great view of the portal. In the distance they could see a flying wedge of green as the remaining Green Lantern members formed a prism of green energy to shield the heroes, an at the center of the formation of Lanterns and other heroes, flew Kara.

Another spell from Raven, and shadows seemed to settle over Lena’s eyes, acting as a set of binoculars, and keeping Kara crisply in the center of her vision. ‘ _She’s magnificent,’_ Lena thought to herself. ‘ _Wounded, covered in dirt and at the end of her tether, and she’s still the most magnificent thing I’ve ever seen’_

“I still hate you right now,” she said aloud. “But thank you for this.”

“If it helps,” Raven responded, still in that toneless voice. “You won’t even remember this, or me for that matter. If this kills Trigon, my mother will never have me. Maybe there will be some other girl named Rachel born to the Roth family, but Raven will be unmade all the same.”

“I know It’s not your fault, but I’m going to spend what little time I have left, loving Kara and hating you.”

To her surprise, Raven chuckled and then did something that Lena had been told only her closest friends had ever seen. She banished the shadow under her hood, and pulled it back, revealing a very young girl with black hair with blue stripes who blinked into sudden influx of light.

“That’s fair enough. If you can’t be honest now, when can you?” She sat down on a piece of rubble and looked up at the attack. “What a day.”

“You can say that again.”

\---

Kara did not see John Stewart fall. A demon slipped past the shield and hit him with a poisoned blade, and he spent the few seconds it took to kill him in agony. Nor did she see Hawkman block a shot from a primitive bow, tearing through his wing and sending him plummeting to the ground far below.

There were thirty one heroes in the formation whose sole purpose was to get her to the portal, and she saw none of their deaths, though she knew they all died to keep her safe. Finally though, the last of them fell away, and blows began to rain down on her.

A whip made of fire lashed her back, made of magic and burning through her normal resilience.

 

And Supergirl flew on

 

A gout of acid spat at her that she couldn’t quite avoid burned the hair from her head, and left her in agonising pain.

 

And Supergirl flew on

 

A mace, wielded by a demon with thirteen wings slammed into her arm, shattering bone. She ignored it, rolling past the weapon, planting her feet on the Demon and using him to propel her past the next swarm, now only able to hold the bomb with one arm. Nothing was going to stop her.

 

And Supergirl flew on.

 

Through injury and cataclysm, Supergirl flew. Taking in what little reflected sunlight she could get from the moon on this darkest of nights, she flew towards the portal, mankinds last hope in her arms. She gracefully dodged every blow she could, and rode others to rob them of their impact.

But grace is not armour, nor an unbreakable shield, and Supergirl began to slow as more and more blows impacted against her, until finally she ground to a halt, a mass of Demons covering her and trying to slow her down.

‘ _I’m sorry Lena, I’ve failed you,’_ the thought went through her mind as she tried in vain to fight them off. A demon raised a sword dripping in blood, and Kara saw her death, but the blow never landed.

Beams of heat burned the Demon to ashes, then swept the remaining Demons off her, and she opened her injured and swollen eyes to see her cousin, the other child of Krypton. He flew past her in a rage, his heat vision cutting a path towards the portal, and Kara flew behind him.

One more ride together for their adopted homeworld.

Clark Kent would never know if they’d won, for the Demons used the same strategy against him as they did against Kara, and it worked for the same reason. With enough bodies, even a Kryptonian can be overwhelmed.

Kara cried out for him, as he took as many Demons as he could with him, dragging them away from Kara, and leaving her a clear path.

Her heart as wounded as her body, Supergirl flew on

\----

Finally she made it past the threshold and the blows stopped as the monsters refused to follow her to go face to face with their master. Bleeding, battered, broken, but unbowed Kara came face to face with Trigon the terrible. Lex Luthor had once called Kryptonians gods, but as Kara hovered face to face with what might as well be the devil, she knew he’d been wrong. She was one of the most powerful beings in her world but was less than nothing compared to him. 

And then he noticed her, affixing her gaze with all of his eyes, and all of his attention, and it was all Kara could do to not whimper in fear as the full, awesome, terrifying presence of him washed over her.  
  
**YOU CANNOT STOP ME, TINY THING** Trigon intoned. It wasn’t even speech really, nor telepathy. He was too powerful for that. He simply willed reality to share his opinions with her, and she understood his words and meaning.

“I’d like to test that theory,” Kara replied, trusting in the quasi mystical powers of Trigon to carry her words back. There was the sensation of mirth from the ancient demon.

**DO YOU HAVE ANY LAST WORDS BEFORE I END YOU?**

Kara’s only response was a whimsical smile and using her strength to rip the casing to shreds, releasing the now active reality bomb. This was no time for speeches, Trigon was too powerful for that. It was only the surprise and fact that he truly believed nothing could harm him that had given them a window.

The device activated, and the pain stopped.  The energy that had been buffeting her since she passed the threshold died, as energy, heat even light was sucked into the device in a fraction of a second until all that was left was a black void, with Kara facing Trigon while the device glowed like a star.

And in that moment Kara took the time to remember everyone she loved. Alex and Eliza and Jeremiah, who had taken her in and given her a home and family. Clark and Lois who were her Kryptonian family. The justice League and Titans with whom she’d lived and laughed and alongside whom she’d defended the planet. She thought of J’onn and the other members of the DEO who had been such an integral part of her life. Of Cat Grant and CatCo and all the lessons she learned.

And she thought of Lena. Her beautiful, perfect Lena, who would live, despite everything they would never get to do together.

With that thought foremost in her mind, she met Trigon’s gaze levelly. “Go back to Hell.”

The device detonated, and Kara Zor-El disappeared into the purest, whitest light

\---

The world lurched, and Lena Luthor nearly fell out of bed.

She had been awoken in the middle of the night before and her clock read 3:24AM in its normal digital red. She couldn’t understand what had snapped her out of sleep with all the comforting pull of a garotte around her neck, but there was something very very wrong.

She touched a stud on her nightstand even as she scrubbed her eyes with her spare hand and forced her brain into action. Almost immediately the calming voice of Douglas Houser, head of her security team came over the com.

“Ms. Luthor, is everything all right?”

“What just happened?” Lena snapped. There was a time and a place for courtesy, but this was not it.

“I’m not sure what you mean ma’am, the board is green,” Houser responded in exactly the calm soothing voice she’d appreciated in her senior security man. “All units on the perimeter have checked in on time and none of the alerts have been tripped.”

That gave Lena pause. As the owner of L-Corp, the sister of Lex Luthor and an avowed enemy of Superman as a result, her security was absolutely top notch. Quite literally the best money could buy. It wasn’t as if Superman routinely attacked her, but he’d made his distaste for her entire family known despite Lena having no particular animosity towards the man of steel.  
  
Nonetheless, she had left Metropolis for National city and as she threw herself out of bed, she couldn’t shake the feeling of wrongness. The feeling that….

_Something is absent. Something that should be, isn’t._

The thought flitted across her mind like a bullet and she couldn’t hold onto it as it faded away. She looked around her dark apartment and could see nothing amiss, and she touch her com again.

“Doublecheck everything. I don’t know what, but something isn’t right.”

To his credit, Houser didn’t waste time asking if she was sure, or whether she might be imagining it. He was certainly paid enough to not ask stupid questions. “Of course Ma’am, I’ll recheck everything, and got to ready state two. Will that be sufficient or do you want me to send the detail up?”

Lena paused and thought about it for a moment. One thing was certain, she decided as she grabbed her abandoned robe from the chair she’d flung it on. She certainly wasn’t having security up here while she was sleeping in the buff. The thought almost chased the chill out of her soul, but not enough of it. “No need to quite that far Mr. Houser,” she responded. “Set everyone to ready 2, double check everything, and make sure you personally check Alpha project.”

“Yes Ma’am, anything else?”

“No, thank you Douglas,” she said, almost regretfully. Houser was damned good at his job, and this was going to mess with the organised schedule something rotten, but what was the point of being a billionaire if you couldn’t indulge your paranoia from time to time. She bade him goodnight, grabbed the tumbler and half-finished bottle of brandy from her table and walked out to the balcony.

Pouring herself a very full measure she leaned up against the balcony edge and looked out over National city. It was quiet so far up, and she felt her eyes flicking back and forth across the sky looking for……

Something…..

She just didn’t know what, but her nerves had begun to settle after a short while and a good helping of Brandy. The fresh air had helped too, and with a sigh she turned back into her apartment.

Before she closed the window to her balcony, she could have sworn she caught a glimpse of motion from the corner of her eye and turned back to the view. The sky, empty but for the few stars that could overcome the wash of city lights seemed to mock her.

“I need to go back to sleep,” she muttered to herself, turning away from the view. “The world will make sense again in the morning.”

Yet despite her assurances to herself, as she lay in bed trying to sleep she couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

Not at all.

~fin~


	4. A Time For Wolves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Alex and Lena meet, trade veiled threats and come to an agreement. Also gay accidental gay confusion.

Let us make two assumptions. Let us assume that Alex Danvers is a highly trained special agent with a great deal of intelligence and wits. Let us also assume that Lena is a capable CEO who is a very very smart and dangerous cookie. Let us lastly assume that the two of them interacting would be like two wolves meeting in the wild.

\---

**A Time for Wolves**

\---

“Ms Luthor, Agent Danvers is here,” the voice came over the intercom, and Lena finished signing the document on her desk, before putting it away in her desk. She withdrew a manilla folder and placed it on her desk, and then pressed the button on the device in her desk. She opened the opposite drawer and pressed the large square button in it and a green light came on. Nodding to herself, she closed the drawer and leaned on her desk, the very picture of a composed CEO.

“Send her in please.”

A single manicured nail tapped lightly on the desk as Lena waited, mulling over the report on her desk and the reasons for it. It took mere moments for the door to swish open and for Agent Alex Danvers to enter her office. She entered with the kind of mile eating, power walk that indicated a great deal of suppressed energy, or a natural tendency towards action over thought. Her analysts were divided on that point.

Danvers came to a stop one step into the room, and her head swivelled, eyes tracking around the office and checking all the corners. Once her examination, brief but thorough was concluded, her head turned to Lena and she felt the bright eyes of the special agent gaze at her in an assessing manner before she took two more steps forward towards the desk, waiting until the doors had closed before speaking.

She was after all, not unfamiliar with the idea of prying eyes and ears.

“Ms Luthor, you asked to see me?”

Lena nodded, and gestured to the paired chairs in front of her desk, and Alex sat herself in one, eyes remaining on the CEO and Lena found herself impressed despite herself. This was not a woman to take lightly, as the report indicated, and she would do well to remember that.

Lena waited a moment while Danvers settled and then leaned back slightly. “Thank you for coming Agent Danvers. I won’t take up much of your time, but I have a truly egregious breach of the law to report, and I thought I should bring my concerns straight to you and the FBI.”

Alex smiled a professional smile and pulled out a small notepad from her jacket, and Lena noted the faded logo on the front and the well worn corners before continuing. “You see, I believe I’ve discovered someone, a large group of someone’s actually, who are impersonating Federal agents.”

The pen agent Danvers had been holding dipped slightly, and her eyes narrowed at Lena who returned the gaze with a bland smile.

“I’m no legal expert, but I believe impersonating a Federal Agent carries a three year sentence. I felt compelled to reach out to you as soon as I could.”

The bland smile remained in place as anger stirred lightly in those deep eyes, and with a single click Agent Danvers returned the pen to her pocket, before setting the notebook down on her knee.

“That’s a rather interesting statement Ms Luthor,” she said, her voice level, but tighter than it had been before. “I’d be curious how you came by this information.”

Lena waved a hand in a shrug. “You know how it is, you’re a rich billionaire and people want to be your friend. And speaking hypothetically of course,“ she paused and Alex nodded her head.

“Of course,” the agent agreed.

“Well, if such a person were to happen to ask whether a person of their acquaintance was a Federal agent to someone with access to the agents database in the FBI, and they said no….” her voice trailed off, and there was no mistaking the anger in Alex’s gaze now.

_Time to bait the trap,_ Lena thought to herself.

“I’m sure you’d agree with me that was a crime I just had to report, why I might even have to go to the media and lay out my suspicions. It wouldn’t do to keep that a secret, would it. _‘Agent’_ Danvers?” There was no mistaking the emphasis in her voice now, and to her mild surprise, the woman sitting across from her neither got angry nor offended. She merely smiled back at Lena.

Alex leaned back herself, the smile now one of amusement. “It almost sounds like you’re accusing me of something Ms Luthor. That would be a bit crass don’t you think?”

Lena shrugged again. “It’s certainly none of my business if the person I described happens to fit your description, Agent Danvers.”

“I’m quite sure that if need be, the name of such a person would end up on the FBI agent database, and that any attempt to go to the media would be quickly and thoroughly debunked by real journalists digging into the story," came the stony faced response.

Lena chuckled and tapped the side of her head, awarding Danvers a point. “Very good Agent Danvers. And if I were to say, lay my evidence,” here she tapped the manila folder on her desk. “Before the Senate Appropriations committee, or the judiciary, do you think it would be suppressed as easily?”

Alex cocked her head for a moment, thinking about her response. “I’m quite sure it would be embarrassing, but I’m equally sure it would come to nothing.”

“I see,” Lena responded when it was clear nothing else was going to follow. “I suppose then my final option to cover this horrendous crime, would be to dig into the lead agent in question. To dig deep into her history, her family, her associations. To use every trick and connection a wealthy billionaire might be able to use in order to shine the biggest brightest light I could on said agent and everyone she cared about, heedless of costs to herself or the Agent, until such a time as the media furore would eclipse your apparent control of it. After all we can’t have people going around impersonating the Feds now can we?”

“How dare you Luthor,” Alex snapped. “My family is off limits.”

That broke through the finely honed control as Alex came upright and she awarded another point in her head to the analysts who’d prepared her briefing. They had read both the likely results of her implications and threats correctly. Rather than responding verbally, Lena merely leaned back and smiled at the angry woman seated across from her.

It took Danvers maybe three seconds to realise the opening she’d created and to force her anger back under the surface. “I could bring you in right now for making veiled threats, you realise that?”

“Oh certainly,” Lena agreed cheerfully. “In fact, I thought you might have a recording device on you, which is why a device that cost more than most people make in a year, built into my desk, has been scrambling our conversation since you walked in. If you did have such a device, then it would have recorded nothing but static, and if you try and arrest me based on just your word, I have a team of lawyers one floor down who have the legal cases already drawn up to nail you to the wall. You could never make that accusation stick.”

Lena gave what could only technically be called a smile and green eyes met brown ones in a silent debate before Alex shook her head, a smile forming.

“Christ, I need a drink, but it’s the middle of the day and my boss would kick my ass. Okay Luthor, how about we lay our cards on the table?

“Oh lets,” Lena agreed, her voice turning sharp. “Here’s mine. The file on my desk, of which there is of course more than one copy, details a large amount of information on you. It details your history, your education and employment, your unfortunate brush with the law, and then a very large gap before you began appearing along side Supergirl. It mentions something called the DEO no less than four times, but zero information on waht that is exactly. There’s notes in there about everything from your preferred colour to your favourite pizza, to your high school boyfriend. It’s the kind of file a billionaire might have put together while profiling a high stakes business venture in order to understand the opposition.”

Lena paused for a moment and took a sip of water, enjoying the consternation on Agent Danver’s face as she obviously searched through her memory for any incriminating statements that were about to be used against her, as well as to wonder why she would rate such efforts. “It also contains evidence that you are not a member of the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Those are my cards.”

“That sounds a lot like a great hand, of course that somewhat depends on the game we’re playing,” Alex responded, gesturing to the jug of water on Lena’s desk and at her nod pouring herself a glass. “Since you went to the trouble of profiling me, let me return the favour and tell you we’ve done the same for you once you started popping up on our radar more and more often.”

Lena nodded as the hit went home. “I suspected you might. In fact, I’d be surprised if the occasional intrusion into our databases wasn’t coming from whatever clandestine organisation you represent.”

“I’m quite sure that if we employed hackers, they wouldn’t do anything so obvious as get caught,” Alex responded. “What kind of nasty off the books agency would be if we hired amateurs.”

“Certainly they’re not amateurs, our security is very nearly top shelf after all,” Lena acknowledged. “However while my people can’t stop your people, they are aware of when most of the intrusions happen. There’s a very interesting correlation between when our databases are accessed by an unknown entity, and times when I’ve come into contact with Supergirl.”

Alex’s eyes narrowed at that, and Lena barrelled on. “Which is a big enough coincidence in it’s own right, and then I found out you weren’t actually in the FBI, and suddenly things began clicking together.”

“Okay Luthor. You’ve made your point. Your people are good, now what do you want?” Alex finally asked, bringing their sparring match to an end. “Because you didn’t set this up to prove how good your people are.”

“No I didn’t,” Lena said and her voice had turned cold as ice. “And what I want is simple, _Agent_ Danvers. I want Kara to be safe.”

Whatever Alex had been expecting, that had not been it as her mouth opened and closed, and she then deliberately took a long drink from the glass while she reorganised her thoughts.

“Just so that I’m not misinterpreting, you spent weeks tracking intrusions into your databases, put together a profile on me, and are threatening to go public with it, and in exchange for not doing that, you want me to continue doing something I’m already doing? Boy, you rich people really do live in another world.”

The sarcasm was not appreciated, and Alex almost felt the temperature in the room drop. “Understand me Danvers,” Lena snapped. Her decorum set aside. “You are _not_ keeping her safe. I read her articles you know, and I pay attention to the news. The only way she could have acquired some of those reports, those details, is if she were effectively embedded with your organisation, or if she was Supergirl’s pet reporter.”

Her right hand slammed onto the desk with a crack. “And I won’t have you recklessly endanger her life because you want good press for Supergirl. Kara Danvers is not Lois Lane, and I will not have her become bait for Supergirl’s enemies just to buff her image. I have been there in the aftermath of her battles, and seen the titanic forces she routinely defeats. Kara is not safe tagging along for clicks and page views.”

Alex tried to keep a straight face, she honestly did. However the first crack in her composure came after a few seconds, and less than ten seconds after Lena had finished, she was practically doubled over with laughter, taking big hacking breaths before laughing on for nearly a full minute while the rage built inside of Lena.

“Are you done?” she asked in tones that could have cut glass, and Alex pulled herself together.

“Completely,” she finally got out, her voice remarkably level. “I assume that my word, sincerely given and freely offered will be enough that I will do whatever I have to in order to keep Kara safe?”

“Yes,” Lena replied. “Unfortunately I’m not sure after your outburst that you and I have the same priorities here.”

_Oh she did not like that_ , Lena thought as Danver’s eyes narrowed.

“Let me be very clear about something Ms. Luthor. Kara’s safety is my top priority as Alex. However, Agent Danvers has other duties. Sometimes those duties conflict.”

_Message sent and received,_ Lena thought to herself. Unfortunately there were limits to all things and it was clear she had just run into one. One of the best lessons Lionel Luthor had ever taught her was that you could push people only so far before they could be pushed no further.

“I suppose that’s the best I can hope for then,” she slid the folder over to the far edge of the table where Alex took it in hand, and waved at the door. “I will have the remaining copies destroyed. See yourself out Agent Danvers.”

Alex stood and began to move to the door before stopping and turning, those piercing eyes met Lena’s again. “What is Kara to you?”

“Excuse me?” Lena demanded, but when Alex remained silent she realised that an answer would be required or Danvers was likely to be in her office all day. “She’s my friend.”

“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter Luthor, “ Alex replied evenly. “You don’t got to this level of effort for a friend. Hell, most people wouldn’t go to this level of effort for family.”

Lena swallowed a sudden lump in her throat. “I envy you, Agent Danvers, that you’ve had enough friends,” her voice cracked slightly on the word, and she internally cursed herself for having lost control like that. Lionel would have been furious and Lillian would have berated her for days. “That you can go less than the extra mile for them.  I have not. In fact, it wouldn’t be hyperbole to say that Kara is my only friend in National City, and one of only two people I count as a friend period.”

There was an odd tone to her voice, and Alex’s stance had gone from combative to something softer. “And I will cheerfully do whatever I have to, up to and including destroying a person’s life, to protect my friend.”

“Do you think she’d want that?” Alex asked, her tone speculative. “If I go home and tell Kara what you’ve threatened to do here, do you think she’d be happy?”

The question hung in the air for a long moment and Lena felt her cheeks burn with shame. No, Kara would never have wanted her to threaten Alex or her mystery organisation. Kara always saw the best in everyone, friends, enemies, even CEO’s who occasionally took things many steps to far.

Alex nodded to herself as the stricken expression crossed Lena’s face. “Don’t worry about it Lena,” she said, using her name for the first time. “Kara won’t hear it from me. I wouldn’t do that to her, but I will tell you for free that she wouldn’t thank you for interfering in her life like this.”

“Probably not,” Lena finally allowed. “I imagine that doesn’t stop you from doing it anyway though.”

Alex chuckled and a genuine smiled crossed her face. “No, no it doesn’t. You have a good day Ms Luthor.”

She turned to leave again, and this time it was Lena who stopped her. After all, there was no reason they couldn’t work together going forward if they both had the same goal and a willingness to enact it. In fact, now that she thought about it, recruiting Alex Danvers to her cause, or perhaps Lena joining hers would offer all sorts of advantages. As the old adage went, you destroy an enemy by making them your friend.

“Agent Danvers. Since we’ve established that we’re both willing to meddle in her life to keep her safe, would you be free for lunch on Monday?”

"What?"

The complete and utter breach in the other woman’s expression caught Lena completely by surprise. Alex’s face rapidly moved from shock through anger and then for a brief moment her eyes flicked down to Lena’s chest, and disbelief poured through the CEO as she caught the motion. 

_Not possible,_ Lena thought to herself as her breath hitched. _They couldn't possibly have missed that Alex Danvers was gay, could they?_

Not only did she mentally revoke all the points she had awarded her analysis team, but apparently she was going to have the head of the team flayed alive for not referencing what was obvious to Lena as she watched the cavalcade of emotions on Danvers’s face.

“Agent Danvers, Alex,” she began quickly. “I apologise, my analysis team have obviously missed something significant here. I am asking purely platonically. I thought we might be better as partners in crime trying to keep Kara safe, than working at cross purposes and getting in each others way.”

The sense of relief on Alex’s face was palpable, and she took a long shuddering breath. “Don’t blame them too much,” she said. “I’m not very far out of the closet yet, so there’s no reason they should have known.”

“Still,” Lena said slowly. “I’d like to offer to have the project head, a fellow name Steven, boiled in oil by way of apology.”

Alex laughed at that, “Don’t do it on my account. I’m sure he tried his best. Besides, I already have my eye on someone.”

She gave the CEO an appraising look. “And perhaps more importantly, I don’t think I’m your type.”

If Lena had excellent control over what her face told the rest of the world, the completely blank expression that appeared on it was like a screaming siren that Alex had hit on something she was denying even to herself.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Agent Danvers, and the lunch invitation stands.”

Alex nodded, though whether in agreement or simply to acknowledge the point was an open question. “Sure, say noon-ish, I know a great little Indonesian place on 14th and Lowell, excellent Satay dishes.”

Lena chuckled. “Whatever you’d like Agent Danvers. Now I’m sure we both have better things to be doing."

Alex nodded and headed towards the door. “Last thing Luthor, If you’re going to be joining my merry band of maniacs trying to keep Kara safe, we might as well be on a first name basis. Besides, my friends call me Alex.”

She never looked back to see the thunderstruck look on Lena’s face

~fin~


End file.
